Centralization of school finance in Michigan

School finance reform in Michigan involved centralization (at the state level) of spending decisions about schools, a large tax shift (mostly from property to sales), and a small tax cut. The changes came about after two decades of failed attempts to reduce property taxes in the state, and were the immediate result of an unlikely piece of legislation that abolished all funding for public schools. Unlike most centralized systems, foundation grants in Michigan differ by district. Distributionally, the reforms favor residents of small, rural districts (whose spending was increased sharply). Residents of poorer urban areas, including Detroit, lost net income as a result of the reforms, as did residents of some of the richest suburbs in the state. Michigan permits a number of districts to supplement their foundation grants by limited amounts, a strategy that we argue may be a promising way of combining the efficiency benefits of local control with the equity benefits of foundation grant systems.     

Campaign finance reform and electoral competition

Using state senate data from 1984 through the beginning of 2002, this paper finds that campaign donation regulations clearly reduce the competitiveness in political races. This is reflected in several dimensions. Conservative estimates indicate that different donation limits are associated with anywhere from a 4 to over a 23 percentage point increase in win margins. The regulations increase the probability that only one candidate will run for office. And they increase the probability that incumbents win re-election. Campaign finance regulations also tend to reduce the number of candidates who run for office by an average of about 20 percent.     

Education finance reform: A dynamic perspective

We use a dynamic Tiebout model to analyze the consequences of moving from a pure local system of education finance to a pure state system of finance in which each student receives the same resources. While much of the education finance literature focuses on the static or immediate effects of such a change, our analysis also examines the dynamic effects. Numerical simulations for a calibrated version of our model indicate that these dynamic effects are very important. Comparing steady states, we find that aggregate welfare increases on the order of 10 percent following the switch to a state system. The key to this welfare gain is that a local system yields inefficiently low investment in human capital of children from low-income families.     

Campaign finance reform and electoral competition: Comment

Campaign finance regulation is an important issue for democracies. Proponents of stricter contribution limits believe it will improve competitiveness. Opponents argue that contribution caps are just a mask for incumbency protection. This paper comments on John Lott’s 2006 article in “Campaign Finance Reform and Electoral Competition” in Public Choice.     

高职环境监测课程教学改革探讨与实施

概述了高职院校环境监测教学中存在的问题,根据环境监测课程的特点,结合高职教学实际,对该课程的教学改革进行了探讨与实践,从课堂教学、实践教学、考核评价体系三方面阐述了环境监测课程教学改革的心得体会。     

深化党校教学改革的有效路径

面对党校本身发展和国际国内形势的需要,党校自身必须对教学进行深化改革,可以通过对教学模式、教学内容、师资建设与教学管理方式等四个方面进行创新与改革,行根本上改变教学方式以提高质量与预期的培训效果。     

The equity effects of state school finance reforms: A methodological critique and new evidence

Since 1970, over half the states have reformed their school finance systems with improvement in equity of revenue and resource distributions as one of the stated goals. While numerous studies evaluating the equity effects of these often expensive reforms have been undertaken, there remains much disagreement about how to assess the reforms' impacts. In this article, we address the problems of measuring equity effects with an emphasis on the need for multiple definitions and an understanding of the value judgments inherent in all measures of equity. Next, three methodologies that have been used to assess the equity impacts of school finance reform are critiqued. Finally, in an effort to correct shortcomings of each, a fourth methodology is developed and new empirical evidence on the effects of reform based on that methodology are presented. The article concludes with observations about the importance of the choice of a methodology with which to evaluate complex policy changes that involve value judgments about what is fair, just, and equitable.The authors contributed equally to this article, but for reasons of equity, the names are not listed alphabetically. The research was supported by funds from the Ford Foundation. We would like to thank James Knickman, Richard Schramm and two anonymous referees for comments provided on an earlier draft of the article, Chris Hakusa for computer assistance, and Karen Gruhn for research and secretarial assistance.     

Public employees and public sector reform implementation

Conventional wisdom says that reforms that aim at improving the productivity of the public sector face opposition from public sector employees, and for this reason, tend to be poorly implemented. These claims are not backed by much hard evidence. This paper seeks to fill some of that gap by investigating why an educational reform containing explicit accountability elements is poorly implemented across Norwegian municipalities about four years after the reform has passed the parliament. The empirical analyses provide evidence that municipalities with a large share of public employees are less likely to implement the reform. The relationship seems to be causal. A reduced-form approach is applied, which prevents conclusions about the mechanisms through which the public employees exercise their influence. However, some preliminary analyses indicate that school leaders hold more negative attitudes towards the reform in municipalities with a large share of public employees, potentially indicating that regulatory capture is an issue: school leaders tend to sympathize more strongly with teachers in such environments.     

Selling favors in the lab: experiments on campaign finance reform

Campaign advertising can provide benefits to constituencies when used to fund the distribution of useful information, but voters can be harmed if candidates finance such advertising by trading policy favors to special interests in exchange for contributions. We report data from novel laboratory campaign finance experiments that shed light on this tradeoff, and that provide rigorous empirical evidence on formal campaign finance theory. Our key finding is that voters respond to advertising differently between special interest and publicly-financed campaigns, and that the nature of this difference is qualitatively consistent with formal models’ predictions.     

关于中专语文教学改革的探讨

语文课程是中等职业学校各专业学生必修的文化基础课,对于学生学好各科知识、形成职业综合能力、创业能力及继续学习和发展具有重要作用。但是大多数学生对学习语文的积极性不高,认为学习语文对他们今后的人生发展没有作用,这是令每一个中专语文任课教师头疼的问题,并且还是不得不面对、不得不解决的问题。针对中等职业学校语文课程教学中存在的问题进行剖析,并尝试给出解决方法。     

论连锁经营管理专业校企合作教育模式改革

校企合作是连锁经营管理专业教育实践改革的方向,很多学校都将校企合作纳入连锁经营管理专业的课程体系中,有效地推动了连锁经营管理专业的发展。但是连锁经营管理专业在校企合作的实际操作中也遇到了许多问题,制约着连锁经营管理专业的发展。完善连锁经营管理专业校企合作的措施如下:课程设置要本着"产学结合"原则;教学形式的创新;校企双向挂职培养师资;校企合作科研创新;就业模式创新。     

The public finance of healthy behavior

Lifestyle can often affect the likelihood an individual will have a future illness. Subsidies often mitigate the consequences of poor lifestyle choices. In this paper we explore tax-subsidy policies that lower the consequences of incurring ill health. We find that a funding mechanism consistent with current US policy lowers the investment in healthy lifestyles by both the wealthy, who pay taxes, and the poor, who receive subsidies. We also explore alternative policy interventions such as investing in research to lessen the impact or probability of the disease.     

Does whole‐school reform boost student performance? The case of New York City

Thousands of schools around the country have implemented whole‐school reform programs to boost student performance. This paper uses quasi‐experimental methods to estimate the impact of whole‐school reform on students' reading performance in New York City, where various reform programs were adopted in dozens of troubled elementary schools in the mid‐1990s. This paper complements studies based on random assignment by examining a broad‐based reform effort and explicitly accounting for implementation quality. Two popular reform programs—the School Development Program and Success for All—were not found to significantly increase reading scores but might have been if they had been fully implemented. The More Effective Schools program was found to boost reading scores, but this effect seems to disappear when the program “trainers” leave the school. © 2005 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.